What Is Base64 Encoding?
Base64 converts binary data into a set of 64 printable ASCII characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /). It increases data size by about 33% but ensures safe transmission through text-based protocols like email (MIME) and URLs.
Common Uses
| Use Case | Example |
|---|---|
| Email attachments | MIME encoding for binary files |
| Data URIs | Embedding images in CSS/HTML |
| API authentication | HTTP Basic Auth header |
| JWT tokens | Header and payload encoding |